English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Reinforcement has the potential to generate strong reproductive isolation through the evolution of barrier traits as a response to selection against maladaptive hybridization, but the genetic changes associated with this process remain largely unexplored. Building upon the increasing evidence for a role of structural variants in adaptation and speciation, we addressed the role of copy-number variation in the reinforcement of sexual isolation evidenced between the two European subspecies of the house mouse. We characterized copy-number divergence between populations of  Mus musculus musculus  that display assortative mate choice, and those that do not, using whole-genome resequencing data. Updating methods to detect deletions and tandem duplications (collectively: copy-number variants, CNVs) in Pool-Seq data, we developed an analytical pipeline dedicated to identifying genomic regions showing the expected pattern of copy-number displacement under a reinforcement scenario. This strategy allowed us to detect 1824 deletions and seven tandem duplications that showed extreme differences in frequency between behavioural classes across replicate comparisons. A subset of 480 deletions and four tandem duplications were specifically associated with the derived trait of assortative mate choice. These ‘Choosiness-associated’ CNVs occur in hundreds of genes. Consistent with our hypothesis, such genes included olfactory receptors potentially involved in the olfactory-based assortative mate choice in this system as well as one gene,  Sp110 , that is known to show patterns of differential expression between behavioural classes in an organ used in mate choice—the vomeronasal organ. These results demonstrate that fine-scale structural changes are common and highly variable within species, despite being under-studied, and may be important targets of reinforcing selection in this system and others.  This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards the completion of speciation: the evolution of reproductive isolation beyond the first barriers’.

The role of copy-number variation in the reinforcement of sexual isolation between the two European subspecies of the house mouse